“3 Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, 2 and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith, 3 that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. 4 For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know. 5 For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain. Timothy’s Encouraging Report 6 But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— 7 for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith. 8 For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord. 9 For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, 10 as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith? 11 Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, 12 and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, 13 so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” (1 Thess 3)

The resolved portion of man’s constitution: she or he ends the fascination or indulgence in things reliable, in commonplace peace, in societal cohesion, and goes headlong into the war. This portion Resolved, wake up nonetheless to find untold dreamland personal therapy or warning, foreboding or promising: the dreamer is Trying, just Trying, for the Resolved portion to take the helm over the fright zone. Over the madness zone. Over the incoherent zone.

Nursing the resolved portion, is so much by way of Reminder: Christ died for us, the worthy for the unworthy; He charted a course, that by it many sons and daughters would be brought to Glory; He asserted, discerned, War in His generation that began with plain repulsion in dialog, and ended on a solemn Hill on a Cross. Somehow we are taught to keep in that resolved portion of the mind, the endless Wrongs and distant Hopes and Causes Belligerent. The reasons we say, “Here I stand”. The purpose of our entrenched posture. The commissioning of our entire frames, body and soul. Unto eternal reward from a temporal Decision. Unto a dreamland Tomorrow from today’s battlefield waged. Unto a field and spouse, a family who adores and a neighbor who dialogs, in the weary soldier’s homecoming.

The Creed is plain that our worries are ended; our preference for holding down the peacetime fort, is met with consternation at the get-up of a now enemy. Those things will have to wait. In league with so many soldiers past, in league with the disciples themselves, in league with Christ our Savior, we are resigning the luxuries of peace, and going headlong into Battle. This is a battle that will tax everything within us, as our drillmaster and handler, our chessmaster and resident of earthly High Altitudinal or subterranean Hide Out, metes out no patronizing talk, but relies on us come hell or high water; does not patronize us but for some strange reason allows us to make our own decisions and to live or die for the right cause or the wrong cause.

The spymaster, then, of Christian tradition, of present-day Christian faith, of this hour Personal Conviction, we are no longer embarrassed by the Faith we proclaim. It is His or Her faith as well, that denizen of high altitude or low hide out. It is a faith that precludes Any moral list, including even the commandments ten. It posits that Man, putting his or her faith in One Man, is a moral being, forever inventing kudos and tokens of the benevolence rising up within the heart and soul. Man will invent his or her good deeds. That is a matter for a less urgent day. The urgency Today is that Man be inducted in, forgiven yes, but inducted in. To the rumored secret society. To the mindset of Service-Oriented sharing: we share just who and why and what saved us. We have this hope because He invested His own Son in us, not to a secretive remove, but gave to us of Himself.